Posts Tagged ‘Choices’

Day 276: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 — Turn, Turn, Turn

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

To those of us who are old enough to remember, Peter Seeger wrote the song Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season) in 1959 and recorded it in 1962.  It was made famous in 1965 when The Byrds, yes children, The Byrds, recorded it in 1965, and it climbed to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  The song was taken nearly entirely from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  When I read the verses, the words become music in my head again.  My wife and I grew up as teenagers in the 1960′s, and this song was a very popular song during our teen years.  When I told her about the scriptures that I had read and was trying to decide what to write about, she started humming the song.  If you want to hear the song and get the verses, Google “song turn turn turn” and you will be led to it.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time…”, well a time for most things that I have little control over.  There are things that we can change and or at least have an impact on but most of the things in this world that God created and rules are beyond our control.  Can we change the seasons?  No, but we can be attuned to the world and the people around us and can impact other people’s lives.  Not only can we, we will impact other people – that’s just a fact.  Whether we impact their lives positively, negatively, or have a neutral impact are somewhat determined by us but can also be affected by the other people, the surroundings, the events that are happening, etc.  With God’s help, we will have a positive impact.

Day 85: Deuteronomy 11:1-32 — A Choice

Friday, March 26th, 2010

In Deuteronomy 11:1-25, Moses continues to exhort the people to obedience, based on the evidence of what God has done for them in the past. The deliverance from Egypt described in Deuteronomy 11:2-4 is narrated in Exodus chapters 13-14. The story of Dathan and Abiram (Deuteronomy 11:6) is told also in Numbers 16. In Deuteronomy 11:10-12, Moses makes a distinction between Egypt and Canaan, the Promised Land. The main difference is that Canaan is not irrigated as Egypt is (Nile River). But God will water the new land, nevertheless. According to Deuteronomy 11:14, God will provide early rain (in October, since the new year began in September), and later rain (in April). Because life will be so good in the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 11:16), the people will be tempted to worship other gods out of complacence. If that happens, Moses warns that there will be no water at all. Deuteronomy 11:18-25 summarizes this entire section. The people are to pass on these words from generation to generation. Deuteronomy 11:24 gives the boundaries of the Promised Land (the western sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea, to the west of Canaan).

In Deuteronomy 11:26-32, there are two possibilities offered to the Israelites. The decision rests on obedience to the covenant. Two mountains are mentioned, one for the blessing and one for the curse. Both mountains are located near Shechem in the central hill country, on the west side of the Jordan River. The people of Israel constantly have a choice before them. They can choose either blessing or curse. I find it interesting that God gives us a choice and we think it is a right. We make a good choice and all is well. We make a bad choice and experience some negative consequences and we blame God for giving us a choice or the severity of the consequence. Which is it going to be? Have we reached a point in life that it is so good that we have fallen prey to complacency to think there is no God and there are no consequences? Of all the things that should make us anxious or scared is the idea that God would remove His grace of blessings and curses. Think about what life would be without them. Can there even be a blessing without a curse or vice versa?